This series was a collaboration with my wife Jutta Mason. First broadcast early in 1985, nearly thirty years ago, it was based on her work in archives across the country on the history of childbirth and childrearing in Canada, looking first at what life was like before the establishment of the modern medical system, and then at how this system established its hegemony in the first half of the 20th century. A couple of years later Jutta would draw on this work to write the historical section of the Report on the Implementation of Midwifery in Ontario (1987) which led to the legalization of midwifery in this province. I'm rebroadcasting it here now so it will be available to young friends in their childbearing years who are wondering how things got the way they are...